


Scenes From A Nightmare Like Scenes From A Dream

by CatMeisterCoal



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), cr season 2
Genre: Burning alive, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Instability, a little bit, incarceration, like a tiny bit of comfort, uh... bad stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 11:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17202392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatMeisterCoal/pseuds/CatMeisterCoal
Summary: My take on how young Caleb discovered magic and how old Caleb came to have nightmares about fire.





	Scenes From A Nightmare Like Scenes From A Dream

Fire is a beast. It grows as it feeds. It growls with a crackling roar as it tears through wood, flesh, bone and it breaths. With each inhale it continues to grow, continues to feed on the feast before it, becoming more and more untamable with each passing moment, going completely wild. It rampages through forests and demolishes villages eating everything in its path. The people run, scatter in fear in the face of this monster that has grown beyond the ability of humanity to control. Acrid smoke and burning cinders fill the lungs as luminous flames torch the skin as ash sprinkles down through the air. The smell of it all swirls along the wind for miles with the sharp but warm smell of burning wood, the hazy scent of fields turned ablaze, and the savory, salty stench of roasting meat. Behold. Behold my undoing.

The rustling of sheets sliding against one another accompanies the soft thump of feet hitting the cold wood floor that creaks ever so softly during the early hours of morning when the first rays of sunlight have just begun to warm the land once more. Hazy blue eyes peer groggily through a mess of blonde waves born in disarray from the night of fitful sleep for today is the day. The day the boy might be chosen for something greater, something beyond himself. With the crumpled shirt and pants now gone, a clean white shirt and sturdy brown pants are worn in their stead if perhaps a touch to big for the slim build of the boy. Old, sturdy boots tap through the house and into the room where his mother and father are, smiling at their boy who they’re so proud of. All of it moves along in a blur, the arrival of the soldiers from the empire, the introduction of the man named Trent who looks so regal, and the order for the children to line up for his inspection. He stands tall, straight, and proud then it happens. Trent looks down at him and smiles, a smile that feels so warm in the morning light. He’s been chosen. He’s been deemed worthy.

The work is tough and at times it’s almost unbearable but when he does well, when he does something right, Trent pats his head and tells him what a wonderful student he is and how much he’s going to help the empire. No one’s ever needed him so much before and he feels it within his very being, filling him up like warm tea into an awaiting cup. It’s comforting. Even when he’s beaten down, tortured beyond what he can handle, or forced to stand unbearable weather, he remembers: people need him so he needs to work hard, he needs to be taught this way, he needs to be perfect. Trent is always there with them to guide them along the proper path to become heroes of the empire and to honor their country. Then he teaches them magic and it’s like a whole new world opens up for the boy because he can make the world around him mold to him. He has power beyond what he could ever imagine and it’s intoxicating whenever he uses magic it gives him a warm, fuzzy feeling as though a narcotic were flooding through his veins. The boy and his fellow pupils are set against each other to test their might which they do so eagerly, all of them wanting to prove to Trent that they were worthy of his admiration and could be trusted with the fate of the empire. In the end, some of them didn’t make it. Their given no time to feel sorry for their fallen colleagues. Trent assures them that it’s for the best, since they fell they clearly weren’t up to the task of protecting the empire but the remaining are. It continues on and on until only a handful are left, the boy among them, all strong in the magical arts and worthy of the empire and Trent’s admiration.

The more successful they are the more attention and gifts they are given as they become molded members of society. The boy becomes surrounded by books to the point he’s almost swimming in them and among them he is home, taking comfort in the seemingly endless knowledge they provide. Trent see his joy as he reads them and gifts him with more making the boy adore him that much more. How wonderful Trent is for doting on him and giving him everything he wants. He is no longer dressed in the cheap clothes of a peasant, now he only dresses in fine silk shirts, prim cotton pants, fine leather boots and jackets. His hair is kept short and neat, perfectly groomed as well as clean shaven as he needs to be as one of Trent’s most promising disciples. They follow Trent around and attend to his whims as his fierce, unwavering entourage. No task is too small or too cruel for them as they are all too eager to please him and to show him they are completely loyal to him. They torture, kidnap, and destroy the property of anyone Trent says is unworthy of the empire. He sets them unto the city like a pack of wolves ravenous for their next meal on the hunt for blood always wanting more as their insatiable hunger grows. Then the day comes that Trent asks of them what would have been impossible before all their lessons and training but now they are only happy to do as he bids. As the last piece of proof that will prove whether they are truly loyal they must do away with their families. They must do away with that which could hold them back from their fullest potential.

Like a scourge, they lash onto their home in complete silence. They seal off buildings by boarding up doors and windows thus preventing any and all means of exit or entry. Then they set it all ablaze. In time, screams fill the air letting them know that their families are indeed dying. They’re dying for the empire for they are not important. They are not worthy. Fists slam against doors and boarded windows rattle uselessly as the screams continue to echo through the chilly night now unbearably hot from the giant pyres. Prayers rise up from the howling, disembodied voices for forgiveness, for salvation from this torture. The boy hears them but their cries don’t reach him for he knows what lies ahead for him after his task is done, he need not fear his future. Then a voice he’s known since birth reaches up calling not for salvation but for him. His mother is thanking the gods that her son is safe from this pain and torture and begs his forgiveness that she could not say goodbye. His father joins her in erupting tears. He’s never heard his father cry. His mother. His father. They’re burning. They’re dying. He did this. He did this. Then everything goes dark.

Everything is quiet and calm. The silence smothers him with its hollowness as it encases him completely. There is nothing but silence in this cold place that is dark and gray. There is nothing and no one. Who is he? Where did he go? It’s quiet. Everything is quiet. Where did he go? He starts shivering in the cold not knowing anything that’s happened and not knowing anything that’s going on and everything is too quiet. He’s about to scream from the silence just to break it, to escape it but suddenly there’s humming. It’s a sweet, melodic voice and for the first time in this cold place he realizes he’s not alone. A woman, plain and beautiful materializes before him, solid, real. There are a few other figures around him but they remain silent and gray almost as though they too are apart of this crypt. Yes, a crypt, for surely he must be dead because how could he possibly be alive and yet feel so little? Where did the warmth of life go? The lovely song of the mysterious woman lull him into a dreamless slumber.

When he awakens there is food. He is given ashen bread and soup that is more water than soup but he can’t bring himself to care for he tastes none of it, his senses have left him. Time loses meaning as the days fade into nights, as days blur into months and he no longer knows how long he’s been inside this crypt. The woman hums every so often as she becomes his sole comfort their among the living dead who never speak creating a barrier of silence. When he sleeps it’s either darkness or the consuming brightness of flames that startle him to wake with screams of terror and sorrow then the voice of the woman drift into is ear and his screams calm into sobs. He forgets eventually. He no longer knows what had once happened or why he dreams of fire and why it brings him so much sorrow. He forgets his own name and identity. One day he looks down at his hands with the slight realization that they were no longer the hands of a boy but a man. The man then fades into the quiet, thankful for it for while it provides no answers it doesn’t ask questions either.

Then the stillness is broken with thunder. The man is awakened by and hears the pattering of rain against the walls of the crypt and he cries with a fathomless sorrow. He knows he’s lost but he doesn’t know how to be found. The clothes around him are barely warm but they keep most of the cold out so he likes his coat as ragged as it may be. He likes how his hair has grown long as it too keeps out the cold. Thoughts like these surround him but they do not shut out the tears, they never do. He knows he just has to let himself cry until the crying stops, he only wishes he knew why he was crying. More time passes and it’s always the same until one day the woman approaches him. She stops humming to come and walk to him and he notices how her thin frame can barely support her as she takes step after shaky step in his direction. A gentle smile graces her face as she bends down to face then gentle as the fall of a snowflake she places her hands about his temples. The man feels her cold fingers then slowly like the trickle of water down an icicle he feels his mind returning to him like breaking through the surface of a lake to come up for air. He gasps as the memories flood back to him and he knows. Oh gods, he knows.

The world returns to him and he looks around as though seeing the room around him for the first time and then he realizes he’s not in a crypt at all but an asylum which only makes all too much sense to him. He feels he deserves worse for the life he had lived but an asylum was a good start. The faces of the gray shadows that have surrounded him for the entire time he’s been here all show the spark of insanity in their eyes as they sit there in their collective listless stupor. Among them he spots the woman who has brought him so much comfort and she is frail and tragically lovely bringing him to tears once more. Then he’s forced to watch her as she decays further as she refuses to eat and her humming becomes erratic with her fingers twitching to the incongruent rhythm. She eventually starts shivering even when the room lacks its normal chill. Then her eyes become wide with an incomprehensible fear. All he can do is sit there and watch as the woman falls into insanity, as yet another life he’s touched becomes ruined.

A break in the arduous rhythm of asylum life happens when two guards enter the cell and lift the man to his feet. He’s forced to walk with them through barren hallways and hears distant cries of other inmates he never knew were there. This place is so much bigger than he thought it was. Before he can make out much more of the asylum he’s shoved outside with the door slamming behind him. He’s been released. Somehow, this is far worse than having been in the asylum in the first place. He’s a murderer, a criminal and deserves what he gets. All he can do now is walk and so walk he does. He doesn’t know where he’s going and has no particular direction in mind. He just walks until he can’t walk anymore.

His eyes crack open to find himself in a cave he doesn’t remember wandering into and yellow eyes peering at him through the darkness. The eyes belong to a goblin who is handing him a flask and some bread which he takes slowly then nibbles at it not feeling the hunger he should be feeling. It’s raining, he realizes. The goblin girl doesn’t stop staring at him but he doesn’t mind, she’s being rather sweet really. Not many people would have dragged him into shelter to protect him from the rain and feed him.

“I’m Nott,” she says, “who are you? And what are you doing out here?”

“I… I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going,” the man says.

“That’s alright,” she smiles revealing snaggly, pointed teeth but he doesn’t mind, “You can come with me! So, what’s your name?”

And he remembers…

“Caleb,” he says, “my name is Caleb.”


End file.
